SSBBW & FFA

I know that I'm not the only one that's noticed the lack of members that participate here. And I don't really expect the ones that have already gone to see this and give input. I just wonder, what happened? Seems like there has been a drop in the last few years and hardly anyone is on here anymore. Is there a reason for that? I would hate to see such a beautiful place for discussion simply fade away. It worries me and I hope that it does others here as well. Please, any input would be appreciated. Maybe it would help turn things around for the better

Member

Like you, I have enjoyed the boards for many years. As an infrequent messager, I nevertheless see the same readiness to bash comments similar to what is happening on Twitter and other social media. The fear of harsh criticism may have people shrugging and walking away.

Should some commenters be torched? I have seen examples here that fully merit the flame. But in the climate of "militant outrage", an individual who is not abreast of the latest cause celebre is prudent to choose lurking instead. It is safer, if less conducive of open conversation.

Happy to be part of Dims!

I suspect there are other venues that “compete” with this one. From a simple preference for plus size men or women to some of the fetishes, to some of the erotic literature shared here...each of those can be considered a niche, and this era there are no shortage of outlets where people can pursue those.

What I like about this place is it pretty much touches on them all. I agree it does seem to have really quieted down. It seemed to be quieting down back in 2012 when I first discovered it. Still I’ve enjoyed it and hope to see enough new blood to keep it viable for the foreseeable future.

Happy to be part of Dims!

Like you, I have enjoyed the boards for many years. As an infrequent messager, I nevertheless see the same readiness to bash comments similar to what is happening on Twitter and other social media. The fear of harsh criticism may have people shrugging and walking away.

Should some commenters be torched? I have seen examples here that fully merit the flame. But in the climate of "militant outrage", an individual who is not abreast of the latest cause celebre is prudent to choose lurking instead. It is safer, if less conducive of open conversation.

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I hate to say it but you’re right. Most of the members here have been great but I’ve been on the receiving end of being flamed a few times myself and seen it happen to others too. Not always deserved. A fair point.

SSBBW & FFA

I hate to say it but you’re right. Most of the members here have been great but I’ve been on the receiving end of being flamed a few times myself and seen it happen to others too. Not always deserved. A fair point.

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If someone is unhappy about what is being said in this forum, they should go elsewhere. They don't have to participate if that is the case. Maybe that is what's caused the quietness, but I don't see how that's possible sense it was so active when I first came here in 2011. I agree, things started to go downhill about 2012, or 2013 after the second chat attempt went away. Regardless, this is a great community for most of us and we should be concerned when it is threatened.

SSBBW & FFA

When the majority of chatter is on the paysite boards and you're looking for more to discuss then that...well what is the draw?

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Exactly! That's what I'm saying, What happened to cause the non-paysite members to go away. There's always been a draw to the paysite board. But there used to be great discussions on here that have since ceased to exist currently. And that's mostly because those people aren't on here anymore.

One of 50,298

Based on what former posters have told me, it was a number of factors. Hyde Park brought out an ugly side from a number of people. Too much porn, not enough discussion. Decisions by past management and moderators played a part. Throw in other factors such as weight loss, death and relationships that pulled people from here as well.

Well-Known Member

I am on a variety of forums many of them hobby related. And I have noticed few members if any post but plenty of readers if one looks at the bottom of page of each forum at stats members online etc.
I miss some of the old members like Moore2Me I asked on the thread whatever happened to but nothing yet.
People mention on those hobby forums many left to go to FB or Instagram. I do not have FB and my Instagram is just to follow some hobby related persons who post creations there.Not sure what type of discussions people would like to see on here.

The outlying data point

Here’s an outsider’s perspective, from someone who’s had accounts on various flavors of Dimensions for more years than i can remember, who has barely ever posted and seldom even read/lurked, and who has been more active here in the past few months than ever in the past.

Disappearance of People in General (Theory)
As noted by happily_married: Dilution. Many other places to go in the online fatosphere.

Feabie happened a couple of years ago, and a lot of people flocked to it, with many other existing sites noticing the drop and feeling threatened/concerned (i was over participating on Fantasy Feeder at the time). A lot of people resonated with one singular real-time conversational chat thread, which apparently looks and works a lot like Facebook (which i have seen others use for hours but have never used myself). I joined the crowd when that site was first announced, finding it a lot like high school snarkiness, with cliques forming and challenging each other, with a smattering of reasonable people holding reasonable discussions. They’ve done better than any other site i’ve known holding real-world meet-ups (at least in my area), one of which i attended in the first half year of Feabie’s existence.

On a personal note, there didn’t seem to be a place for me in that culture plus i didn’t like the infighting, so i dropped it. (I only sign in enough to keep my account alive, which seems to be once every 2 years.)

There’s Fantasy Feeder. There’s Curvage. There’s likely maybe another few to half dozen i don’t even know or have forgotten about. Some aspects are covered on DeviantArt. Other aspects are apparently covered on the FetLife site i’ve not been to and know next to nothing about. I’m sure others can name a bunch of other online places covering aspects of things for which people used to come to Dimensions.

And that’s just sites directly relevant to the online fatosphere. There are more ways to spend/consume/waste time than ever before, with many people having Netflix queues going into the next century, other streaming video and audio always available, podcasts out the wazoo (interesting body part, the wazoo), and… wait for it… real life!

(Re)Appearance of Me (one direct perspective)
So why am i here?

The big, major reason: those automated Yesterday’s Forum Activity emails. The first ones i remember seeing came out last spring. I hadn’t thought much about Dimensions in a long time, and some of the one-line summaries looked interesting. Curious, i followed a few to look.

Everything was different, and felt weird. Conrad B., who founded and used to run Dimensions, was nowhere to be found and i could not find any history thread about what had happened. Confused and lost, i private messaged Loopy, recognizing her name from when she and i and a bunch of others were active on Fantasy Feeder (known name: trusted, in that possibly weird way at least some of us may connect with people and trust online). She readily soothed my concerns by explaining what she knew of the changes. The exchange felt welcoming.

Not knowing anyone (else, that i knew of), being shy, and not feeling i had much if anything to contribute, i followed a couple of links in those daily summary emails here and there. Then the emails suddenly stopped, and i went back to my usual ignoring-Dimensions life.

Jump to late October this year. Feabie sent me a final notice that my account was going to go Poof if i did not sign in. So i signed in, looked around for about 5 minutes, and signed back out (and have not been back since, so far). The same day or next day a summary email from Dimensions plinked into my inbox. Coincidence? I have no idea.

Just a few days later i had my near-death medical emergency which utterly up-ended my life, and with it an immediate need to get out of my recluse life and have contact with people. Going to this forum was one of several ways for me to feel a sense of contact, and was an easy path of least resistance with the summary emails pointing out threads of possible interest to me every morning.

No one knows me and i’m surely doing everything wrong in terms of failing to post in the returning members thread(s?) or any other sort of proper introduction. This may relate to my ambiguous feelings about being on any fatlovesex forum: part of me is still trying to hide from the community, after some trauma i both suffered and generated in fall 2016 (not here on Dimensions).

I am typing this here and now and participating in this way because i feel a sense of community here. I don’t know whether this is my community or whether i will be accepted, and for sure i’m not in a position to participate regularly for many reasons. When i see the avatar pics and posts from AmyJo and BigElectricKat and Dragonfly and other regulars i could mention, i feel a sense of friendliness, civil discourse, and home. I don’t know these people any more than they (don’t) know me, but i feel like i do, from their many posts sharing aspects of themselves, their thoughts, and their interests. So it feels like a home, or a safe space, and makes me want to at least keep reading, and maybe sometimes post (and usually post too long, because i’m terminally verbose).

Obviously just one quirky person’s perspective and actions, unable to be generalized. Maybe if more of us share why we’re here as well as considering why people are no longer here, more patterns will emerge.

SSBBW & FFA

Based on what former posters have told me, it was a number of factors. Hyde Park brought out an ugly side from a number of people. Too much porn, not enough discussion. Decisions by past management and moderators played a part. Throw in other factors such as weight loss, death and relationships that pulled people from here as well.

Click to expand...

I definitely understand the Hyde Park thing. I remember during election time it got really heated, or at least in the Soap Box as it was called then. I was actually angry when it was closed for a while, but I felt much better after that went away. I started participating in other things on here besides that. I do see how that could cause us to loose quite a few people, but not as may as have gone since then.

SSBBW & FFA

I am on a variety of forums many of them hobby related. And I have noticed few members if any post but plenty of readers if one looks at the bottom of page of each forum at stats members online etc.
I miss some of the old members like Moore2Me I asked on the thread whatever happened to but nothing yet.
People mention on those hobby forums many left to go to FB or Instagram. I do not have FB and my Instagram is just to follow some hobby related persons who post creations there.Not sure what type of discussions people would like to see on here.

Click to expand...

Yes, I have checked out the other forums at one point or another, but I just didn't have the sense of family that this forum provides. They just seemed, like others said, to be immature. Maybe I'm just old fashioned. I did try Facebook for a while, but just couldn't get into it. I had a great friend there too, but other than her, it was pretty much pointless. And with the constant pounding of suggestions that I should join this club or that and be for this cause or that and act a certain way if I was a woman, I just couldn't take it anymore. And now I'm rambling lol!

SSBBW & FFA

Here’s an outsider’s perspective, from someone who’s had accounts on various flavors of Dimensions for more years than i can remember, who has barely ever posted and seldom even read/lurked, and who has been more active here in the past few months than ever in the past.

Disappearance of People in General (Theory)
As noted by happily_married: Dilution. Many other places to go in the online fatosphere.

Feabie happened a couple of years ago, and a lot of people flocked to it, with many other existing sites noticing the drop and feeling threatened/concerned (i was over participating on Fantasy Feeder at the time). A lot of people resonated with one singular real-time conversational chat thread, which apparently looks and works a lot like Facebook (which i have seen others use for hours but have never used myself). I joined the crowd when that site was first announced, finding it a lot like high school snarkiness, with cliques forming and challenging each other, with a smattering of reasonable people holding reasonable discussions. They’ve done better than any other site i’ve known holding real-world meet-ups (at least in my area), one of which i attended in the first half year of Feabie’s existence.

On a personal note, there didn’t seem to be a place for me in that culture plus i didn’t like the infighting, so i dropped it. (I only sign in enough to keep my account alive, which seems to be once every 2 years.)

There’s Fantasy Feeder. There’s Curvage. There’s likely maybe another few to half dozen i don’t even know or have forgotten about. Some aspects are covered on DeviantArt. Other aspects are apparently covered on the FetLife site i’ve not been to and know next to nothing about. I’m sure others can name a bunch of other online places covering aspects of things for which people used to come to Dimensions.

And that’s just sites directly relevant to the online fatosphere. There are more ways to spend/consume/waste time than ever before, with many people having Netflix queues going into the next century, other streaming video and audio always available, podcasts out the wazoo (interesting body part, the wazoo), and… wait for it… real life!

(Re)Appearance of Me (one direct perspective)
So why am i here?

The big, major reason: those automated Yesterday’s Forum Activity emails. The first ones i remember seeing came out last spring. I hadn’t thought much about Dimensions in a long time, and some of the one-line summaries looked interesting. Curious, i followed a few to look.

Everything was different, and felt weird. Conrad B., who founded and used to run Dimensions, was nowhere to be found and i could not find any history thread about what had happened. Confused and lost, i private messaged Loopy, recognizing her name from when she and i and a bunch of others were active on Fantasy Feeder (known name: trusted, in that possibly weird way at least some of us may connect with people and trust online). She readily soothed my concerns by explaining what she knew of the changes. The exchange felt welcoming.

Not knowing anyone (else, that i knew of), being shy, and not feeling i had much if anything to contribute, i followed a couple of links in those daily summary emails here and there. Then the emails suddenly stopped, and i went back to my usual ignoring-Dimensions life.

Jump to late October this year. Feabie sent me a final notice that my account was going to go Poof if i did not sign in. So i signed in, looked around for about 5 minutes, and signed back out (and have not been back since, so far). The same day or next day a summary email from Dimensions plinked into my inbox. Coincidence? I have no idea.

Just a few days later i had my near-death medical emergency which utterly up-ended my life, and with it an immediate need to get out of my recluse life and have contact with people. Going to this forum was one of several ways for me to feel a sense of contact, and was an easy path of least resistance with the summary emails pointing out threads of possible interest to me every morning.

No one knows me and i’m surely doing everything wrong in terms of failing to post in the returning members thread(s?) or any other sort of proper introduction. This may relate to my ambiguous feelings about being on any fatlovesex forum: part of me is still trying to hide from the community, after some trauma i both suffered and generated in fall 2016 (not here on Dimensions).

I am typing this here and now and participating in this way because i feel a sense of community here. I don’t know whether this is my community or whether i will be accepted, and for sure i’m not in a position to participate regularly for many reasons. When i see the avatar pics and posts from AmyJo and BigElectricKat and Dragonfly and other regulars i could mention, i feel a sense of friendliness, civil discourse, and home. I don’t know these people any more than they (don’t) know me, but i feel like i do, from their many posts sharing aspects of themselves, their thoughts, and their interests. So it feels like a home, or a safe space, and makes me want to at least keep reading, and maybe sometimes post (and usually post too long, because i’m terminally verbose).

Obviously just one quirky person’s perspective and actions, unable to be generalized. Maybe if more of us share why we’re here as well as considering why people are no longer here, more patterns will emerge.

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Sonic, I'm glad you fell the way you do! I really like your thoughts on this. I hope you post here more, it would make me happy I know you don't know me, but feel free to hit me up anytime! That's the only way to get to know someone and I would really like to get to know you better

Has Rocks on the Brain

Just wanted to make a tiny contribution to the conversation, though I'm not sure how much it'll really add to any perspective. I too have felt the decline of member involvement with board discussion over the years, and I'll willingly admit that I'm at fault on my part. I was active for years, and then moved to Tumblr when I saw someone had made a post here about being on there. I sporadically pop back in from time to time, and try and stay involved. Dimensions was my first really introduction to the plus-size/fat admiration community on the internet, and I feel a profound since of loyalty to this site.

SSBBW & FFA

Just wanted to make a tiny contribution to the conversation, though I'm not sure how much it'll really add to any perspective. I too have felt the decline of member involvement with board discussion over the years, and I'll willingly admit that I'm at fault on my part. I was active for years, and then moved to Tumblr when I saw someone had made a post here about being on there. I sporadically pop back in from time to time, and try and stay involved. Dimensions was my first really introduction to the plus-size/fat admiration community on the internet, and I feel a profound since of loyalty to this site.

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I'm glad that you took the time to take part! I know very well that there are many other places on here to go now than there used to be. It's definitely not a bad thing for people to move on to other things if that's what interests them. My worry was that there was something wrong here that was causing it. It seems like that not as much that case as it is that there are just more places to go to now. Thanks so much for your input and I hope you will communicate more often on here now

Happy to be part of Dims!

I definitely understand the Hyde Park thing. I remember during election time it got really heated, or at least in the Soap Box as it was called then. I was actually angry when it was closed for a while, but I felt much better after that went away. I started participating in other things on here besides that. I do see how that could cause us to loose quite a few people, but not as may as have gone since then.

Click to expand...

I deliberately avoided it. As noted it often got pretty nasty. I read a few threads here and there and memebers that I otherwise got along with were nasty to each other and disrespectful to viewpoints that differed from their own. I decided the best way to ensure I stayed able to get along with some members was to focus on topics that brought out what we had in common or were not controversial enough to become nasty.

SSBBW & FFA

I deliberately avoided it. As noted it often got pretty nasty. I read a few threads here and there and memebers that I otherwise got along with were nasty to each other and disrespectful to viewpoints that differed from their own. I decided the best way to ensure I stayed able to get along with some members was to focus on topics that brought out what we had in common or were not controversial enough to become nasty.

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I agree, it was not a good thread to bring people together at all. I think it really overshadowed what this forum is all about, bringing people of size and those who admire us together in one community. That thread just tore everyone apart based on their politics. It didn't have anything to do with the main focus.

Staff MemberAdministratorGlobal Moderator

I know there was a lot of mixed feelings when we closed Hyde Park and the Soap Box and I know we lost a fair number of people from closing them. But I'm glad to hear that some people are glad we did it, in the long term, at least.

The quietness here is actually a topic highly discussed among the mod team for the last few months, along with ideas of how to increase participation and such again. More than anything, I'd love to hear from people what they like and dislike about this site and other fat-related sites, things they would change, like to see etc. The mod team are fantastic, but as a group that happens to be entirely BBW, we know we don't have the same viewpoint as at least 50% of the people here. I'm not sure where would be best to ask those questions though; in theory the Board Business Board would be the place for it, but I feel people rarely look there and I would want people to contribute. Ideally, I'd like a thread somewhere with feedback from people on this issue.

Also, asking people similar questions when we were creating the Soap Box led to a lot of negative feedback and stress as well, simply because we were asking what people thought/wanted instead of just making something. But the way I see it, Dims is a place that belongs to the community and should exist to serve the needs of the users and its hard to know what those are without asking.

SSBBW & FFA

I would definitely love a Q&A on what people want on here. I think that would go a long way to making it more attractive to new members and possibly bringing old members back. I just hope people will participate. I think some sort of chat, if possible, would be great. We've tried it before, but for whatever reason it didn't workout.

intellectual nerd

I joined Dimensions in 2006 because it offered an opportunity for civil discourse with thoughtful people. It's still offering it, and I'm still here. I don't think the decline in activity is due to anything we're doing wrong. As many posters have pointed out, Dims was here before the explosion of social media: it had no serious rivals. Now it has. We need also to remember that our demographic -- people who support size acceptance -- constitute a tiny minority of the population. The proliferation of social media has spread them thinner. Then, too, nothing lasts forever: humans, empires, candy bars*, and even bulletin boards come into being, grow, develop, and eventually pass away, regardless of their merit. I certainly welcome any discussion of how these boards can be improved, but I don't expect it will lead to radical changes: in my opinion, we're still doing everything right.